'mnr.r.^m.wu'j^y 



AAA>«* 



'SA^^S^or^''- 



mO^^AT aLF ^jJIJm 



m^^^m^^mmm 



a;5iP'aaA/\/^i 



nmW'p:^-^j^'^L-'^^f\f\ 



^^^' '-A^ 



'AAAaaaAA 






:/A/^r^/^' 



AAAA'AW 






^a'a^ 






AA^Ai^O^.'^!,^ 



I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

I -^>^-^ J..^^ 



i UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.- 



i^V^aA/m 



U^aa^'a: 



^aWW 



r\K^KKt\ 



^^mm 



lA'A'AAA'/^ 






)-. ,^. r -^ /» /C\ A '/^ ( 



??flXXXpSj?S;jAjS?^s«^5««A?^^ 



lCl/^/^/^/!^/^AA'^A 



0'^QQ:!26f^^2^. 



^^ry^r^r'ij^i^' 



M^ff 






n^^^^^^mm^ 



A^Q^A.^ 



AA/\^ 



mA^fS^^^^> 






mmmmm 



^K^RJVAO^I»iL 



^A'A'AhAfiAA 






/^ A /* ^, A A 



A/^.^. A;a- 



^^^^'^^■'"'" '■ ...^>m/m. 






!^P^wA^||^|g 



«^'«S'^S-^^^ 



^«^|||^»^'$^k 



.Ai,^' V^Ai^- 



i..^«=^ 



'NA*/^/^/ 



«^^r^ «' 



HOW WE AEE TO PULFILL OUE LOKD'S COMMANDMENT, 
"LOYE YOUE ENEMIES," IN A TIME OP WAE. 



A SERMON, 



PREACHED IN 



ALL SOULS' CHURCH, NEW YORK, 



JUNE 2, 1861, 



HENEY ^y. BELLOWS, D. D. 




JJ £ b V[oxk : 

AKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS 

Printing-House Square, opposite City Hall. 

1861 . 



SERMON. 



" Ye have heard that it hath been said, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
and hate thine enemy ;' but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them 
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which 
despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of 
your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 
and tlie good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." 

Matt. v. 43 — 46. 

Our Eeligion ought never to be so profound a reality as 
when its principles are tried and tested by the severest neces- 
sities. There are those, I know, who think the faith of our 
Lord Jesus only credible in times of peace and quietude ; in 
the closet and the church ; that earnest business, public affairs, 
and, especially, the commotions of war, necessarily drive its 
doctrines and promises, its precepts and its temper, wholly out 
of men's minds, and even make it almost absurd to name its 
sublime and pure and lovely truths as practical attainments ! 
One of the great and permanent obstacles to the spread and 
influence of a genuine Christianity, is the widely-received fal- 
lacy that the principles of our faith are radically opposed to the 
rough necessities, the stern facts, the great public economies of 
the state and the world ; and that while spiritual life, and the 
church, and the inner circle of thought and feeling may be gov- 
erned and animated by Christian faith, — the world and its 
affairs, business, government, and public policy, must be given 
over to a baser inspiration, and conducted upon a far less ele- 
vated code of principles. 

I deny these mischievous assertions ; I confront these de- 
moralizing fallacies. If Christianity is true anywhere, it is true 
everywhere ; if it is obligatory in anything, it is obligatory in 



everything. If it be suited to man in his highest wants, it is 
suited to him in all respects. Coming from God, the maker of 
man, and the author of man's circumstances and surroundings, 
it is intended to meet the wants of the very condition in which 
we are now living. If this be an imperfect condition, a condi- 
tion far short of our ideal, an unfolding, a disciplinary and an 
educational condition, of mixed good and evil, of necessary col- 
lision and conflict, Christianity is fitted to these very facts ; and 
where the discipline and education, the collision and conflict are 
going on most intensely, there our Religion is most in place, 
and will show itself most true, most practical, most holy, and 
most self-establishing. 

How, for instance, could the great doctrine of our text, 
" Love your enemies," be tested and tried, if we had no ene- 
mies ? And yet, there are those who deride Christianity, be- 
cause it asks us to love our enemies ! as if that were a thing in 
itself possible only when we no longer had any. It is very 
well to talk about loving your enemies, is the secret thought of 
many, so long as you have none, or they are not doing you mis- 
chief, or you are so vastly their superior in every kind of force 
that you are not afraid of them. But how are you to love en- 
emies who are imperiling your children's life, the safety of your 
wives and daughters, spoiling your goods, and endangering the 
very fabric of that government under which all your hopes of 
a safe and peaceful old age, or a quiet burying-place, are shel- 
tered 1' I answer, that a Religion that taught us to love only 
the weak, the harmless, or those we could treat with lenity and 
gentleness, would be a Religion without dignity or elevation, 
and no improvement upon any heathen code ! The triumph of 
Christian love is shown in being able to extinguish personal 
vindictiveness and revenge, even towards those who do us gross 
and cruel wrongs, and whom the necessities of civil and social 
existence oblige us to punish even with violence and death. The 
Gospel bids us love the criminal in his cell, the murderer on 
the gallows, the enemy at our throat — to love him by remem- 
bering that he is still a man, a child of God — a deluded, a pitia- 
ble, a forgivable brother man — a being to be spared all needless 
suffering, all vindictive feelings, all revengeful treatment. But 
it does not bid us release the enemy of society, and set him 
loose upon his innocent brothers ; nor to allow the hand of 
force and violence to go on unrestrained to harm the weak and 



■1;he worthy ; nor to permit the lawless to do his bloody work 
against us unopposed, as if resistance to an enemy were an un- 
fraternal, an unkind, and an unloving act ! Far from it. We 
may love, and bless, and do good, and pray for those whom it 
is our duty to resist, to kill, and to hang, as enemies not of us 
only, but also of the public peace and the interests of social 
:and religious life for ages to come. 

If the present strife in our beloved country does not illus- 
trate the superior Christianity of the States uncursed with that 
unchristian and demoralizing institution — the source of all our 
woe — called Human Slavery — then, indeed, it would be a mat- 
ter of small consequence to posterity which side in this quarrel 
came off victor. I venture to predict, however, that the great, 
new, and noble feature in this strife, is to be the impersonal, 
the high-principled, the humane and Christian temper, in which 
the war is urged on our side ; and the sad feature, the vindictive 
bitterness, the personal revenge, the inhuman and savage temper, 
in which it is carried on upon the other, by those maddened and 
drunken and degraded by one hundred years of slaveholding. I 
make all personal exceptions in this estimate. I will admit ten 
and a hundred thousand exceptions to it, if candor and impartial- 
ity require it. But I say, the holding, for generations, of human 
beings in slavery, ought to produce, and will produce, and has 
produced a civilization in which the first principles of ethics 
are perverted, the natural conscience defiled ; in which Chris- 
tianity becomes impossible, except in a mongrel form ; and 
where violence, rapine, idleness, drunkenness, lust, and cruelty 
must, and do, work themselves into the very life of the people, 
and are sure to characterize, alike, their conduct in peace and in 
war. This war, on the other side, is a war waged for Human 
Bondage and Belial. We, on the contrary, must prove to the 
world that we are waging this war for Christ, and in the spirit 
of Christ ; not against our brethren, not against Christian prin- 
ciples ; — without passion or vindictiveness ; in deepest sorrow, 
and with sincerest pity for those we are compelled to resist and 
punish ; but with a vigor, a thoroughness, and a decisive de- 
termination, which a sense of the magnitude and radical import- 
ance of the humane interests at stake not only justifies, but 
makes our bounden and earnest duty. I declare from the bot- 
tom of my heart, and God knows I speak the .truth, I feel a 
tender, and sad, and anguished pity for the men whom the sub- 



6 

tie poison of ambition, the slow but sure workings of that un- 
hallowed institution of Slavery, the long and sweet monopoly 
of political power and place — have, perhaps almost unconsciously 
to themselves, converted into conspirators against the life of 
the Nation. I know the genius, and the personal and private 
worth of some among them — the genuine errors of judgment, 
the local illusions, the plausible fallacies, under which many 
hold those treasonable opinions and shield their fatal doings. 
Who can have personally known many of them without now 
entertaining feelings of deepest commiseration for their delu- 
sions, mental and moral ; and who can contemplate their proba- 
ble fate without the profoundest pity and sorrow 1 Not Lucifer, 
leading off the third part of heaven, is more sadly to be 
mourned, than the leaders of this frightful rebellion. " God 
forgive them," we may exclaim, with our Lord, respecting his 
own murderers ; " they know not what they do !" Immersed 
in the insidious atmosphere of an institution that corrupts all 
the judgments of men — whose terrible malaria has demented 
the religious guides of the whole territory over which it is 
spread — right and wrong are almost interchangeable distinc- 
tions there, and " Evil, be thou my good," has become the 
brazen motto of the very pulpit of that land ! What but forgive- 
ness, pity, and prayers for mercy, are due in respect of those 
who have found themselves powerless to resist a perversion so 
mighty, so penetrating, so over-mastering 1 That terrible en- 
chantress. Chattel Slavery, — that Gorgon's head, with whips for 
hair, — rises from those fair Southern fields, mightier than the 
Sphynx buried in Egyptian sands, and seems to blast not only 
the civilization and industry of the region around, until it 
threatens to become another Egypt without its Nile, but, 
worse than that, it steals away the heart and conscience of its 
denizens, turns to stone the patriotism and the moral sense of 
its great upholders, and leaves them ready to die in defence of 
a frightful inhumanity, and a wrong that saps their own liberty 
and life, while threatening those of the whole nation. So sad, 
so dark, so fatal a delusion, never before visited a civilized peo- 
ple. If it were possible to open their eyes with any argument 
but the sword — could entreaty, forbearance, long-suffering, and 
forgiveness of injuries have availed — how long ago had they 
changed their minds and been converted? But with those who, 
once having acknowledged the sin and the shame of Slavery, 



have, ill the very face and eyes of a universal sentiment to the 
contrary all over the civilized world, come now to pronounce it 
a blessing and a Divine institution, a glory and a profit — 
the black key-stone of the arch of liberty ; with those who 
have recalled every concession they once made to liberty ; who 
first laid down against our will a line that limited our freedom, 
and then, when it had become valuable and dear to us in our 
despair, as a line that limited their slavery, rubbed it out, 
equally against our will, and then made claim to the free and 
unpolluted territories of the land as the rightful home of their 
accursed Domestic Tyranny ; to those who thus show them- 
selves the grand disputers of modern civilization, the armed 
enemies of humanity, the representatives of feudalism in the 
home of liberty, a nation of Canutes, bidding the tide of moral- 
ity and religion back to its sacred source in the will of God ! 
— to such a people, what has Christianity, what civilization, what 
humanity to oppose when they defy government, usurp author- 
ity, steal public property, and assail with arms, and with subtle 
tongues ill foreign Cabinets, our national existence — but all the 
powers of resistance, which God and Nature, which Civilization 
and Humanity have put at our disposal 1 

But, thus feeling and thus speaking, do we transgress the 
requireriients of our holy faith ? Do we necessarily hate those 
whom we must violently oppose 1 Are we transgressors of 
the law of love to our enemies, because we cannot, must not, will 
not yield to their wicked and terrible will ? Are we unchristian, 
savage, ferocious, because we roll out our artillery, and shoulder 
our muskets, and buckle on our swords to defend our Capital, 
our Constitution, and our Laws ? No ! — a thousand times. 
No ! We love them still ! For we would bless them, receive 
them back, aid them to escape from these self-imposed suffer- 
ings, would they permit it. Nor, perhaps, ever, since the 
world began, was there so little desire to inflict vindictive and 
j^ersonal damage on a formidable foe as here and now. If our 
Southern brethren (enemies though they be) knew the sorrow 
that fills all thoughtful Northern hearts, in view of the terrible 
necessity God's providence imposes upon us — if they knew 
how we smite to heal, and resist to bless, and kill to make 
alive — how we love the very States we may be compelled to 
crush — and pity and would cherish the very people we may be 
forced to exterminate — they would dread, even more than they 



8 

now do, the righteous indignation, the Divine vengeance em- 
bodied in our loyal arm. What Attila boasted profanely of 
being — the scourge of God — the Christian world will finally 
acknowledge these loyal States, in their slow, patient, but deep- 
seated and solemn wrath, to be. The scourge of God ! 
It is the holy anger of Heaven that is to be let loose in these 
gathering thunders ! It is the voice of outraged humanity that 
is to speak in those hoarse cannon ! It is the sacred sword of 
Justice that is now bare ; and Liberty looks for approval to 
the eye of heavenly truth and pity, before she strikes the blow 
which in her pitying heart she shudders to inflict. 

Oh, no ! Characteristically considered, there is no vain 
ambition, no barbarous love of war, no thirst for military 
glory, in the solemn call which is mustering our army ! We 
have stood patiently at our looms and in our furrows, behind 
our counters and in our studies, while the deluded enemy of 
liberty and order and law was hacking away at all the joints 
and members of the State, and foreign ministers, and strangers 
from other lands, and public presses in England and France, 
were pointing scornful fingers at us and our government, as 
though now the old sneers and doubts with w^hich our Great 
Experiment has been secretly met in all imperial directions 
were safely to be turned into the boldest exultations ! Our 
moderation has been taken for apathy ; our hatred of blood, 
for cowardice ; our unarmed and peaceful civilization, for want 
of vigor and ability to defend ourselves ; our pity for our foes, 
and forgiveness of our injuries, for a culpable indifference to 
national indignity and wrong. " The Great Republic is fallen 
forever, and there can never be another," says France. The 
Confederate and the United States are equals in the eye of 
England, says, with a pretence at neutrality, the mistaken cab- 
inet of Great Britain. But, with something of the stillness and 
patience with which the corn-rows are now springing in the 
Western prairies and the Eastern meadows — with something of 
the calm dignity with which the insulted laws of nature avenge 
their wrongs — with much of the meekness of the elements, that 
gather up their affronted forces with noiseless and unthreaten- 
ing energy — so have risen in gentle majesty, in patient strength, 
in mild and tearful energy, the mighty bands of freemen, who, 
with concurrent, united, intelligent, earnest and solemn pur- 
pose, now follow each other like the waves of the incoming 



tide, and begin to swell and break upon the line where rebel- 
lion, disloyalty, and tyranny threaten the existence of the 
nation and its liberties ! Was ever a war more entitled to be 
called a Holy War ? Was ever a national controversy so free 
from doubt — so wholly wrong on one side, so wholly right on 
the other ? Did passion, ambition, military ardor, or second- 
ary causes of any kind, ever before have so little part in devel- 
oping the strength and putting on the whole armor of a people 1 
Peace societies may murmur as they will of the immorality of 
all war — of the unchristian character of this strife. I say, we 
have never had — no, not in the widest and most active seasons 
of religious excitement — such evidences of the influence of the 
Christian Religion, such proofs of the presence of Christ with 
his people, as we have now, in the humane, the just, the gentle, 
the impersonal temper, which animates our brave fellows in 
their consecration of body and soul to the protection and salva- 
tion of their country. If the very rudest and most dangerous 
portion of our army could control their vindictiveness at Alex- 
andria, and not give up to fire and sack a place which had just 
smitten down with private malice their pride and joy, what 
may we not hope for and boast, when we anticipate what will 
be the conduct, bearing, and spirit of our farmers, our me- 
chanics, our clerks, our own sons and brothers, in this strife ? 
I expect a thousand pious Captain Vickers and prayerful Have- 
locks to spring up in the ranks ! I believe that Cromwell's 
men had more fanaticism, but not more piety than thousands 
of ours. I believe that more humanity, more Christian benev- 
olence, more deeds of disinterestedness, more holy pity, more 
earnest prayers and fraternal helpfulness, more that must adorn 
and encourage our love of country, and exalt us to our proper 
place in the esteem and love and confidence of the world — will 
spring up in the course of this war, blessed to us of God, and 
warranted and demanded of Christian duty and principle — than 
have flowed from the commercial, educational, and Christian 
industry and peace of our history for the whole five and twenty 
years past. 

I feel bound, as a Christian minister, to say that I do not 
and cannot approve the tone in which too large a portion of 
the public press seeks to animate the courage and enterprise of 
our troops, by seizing on every doubtful case of inhumanity, 
or every adversity, such as the loss of poor Ellsworth, to exas- 



10 

perate the temper and arouse the ill-blood of our army. No 
can 1 believe that any attempts to fight fire with fire, barbarisn 
with counter-barbarism, cruelty with greater cruelty, treacher) 
with subtler treachery — will meet the just expectations of thost 
on whom the Sacred War must depend for its main support, 
read, therefore, of all schemes of flooding the cities and plant 
ations of the lower Mississippi, by opening the dykes and lev 
ees, with serious sorrow. I have more than doubts whethei 
the seizure of the telegraphic despatches of the last year be a 
wise, a politic, a statesman-like course. Shall we not lose more 
by such a blow at the conjidence hitherto reposed in the sacred- 
ness of these private dispatches, than we gain by the information 
thus wrested from our enemies ? How does it differ from the 
violation of the post-oflice and the seals of private letters ? It 
would be equally wrong and impolitic for the government not 
to respect the parole of our Texan officers, though given under 
compulsion. Let us leave indiscriminate slaughter, piracy, and 
desperate measures to desperate men. We have no occasion 
for them, and no excuse for using them. We can afford to be 
humane and scrupulous in honor, and we are bound to be so 
by the standard of our Christian civilization. While using 
every legitimate weapon, and sending an overwhelming fdrce, 
and cutting off all supplies that directly minister to the strength 
of the enemy, we could be authorized only by the extreme law 
of the right of self-preservation to practice or encourage any 
lower methods than those recommended by the most exalted 
standards attained in the latest wars by the highest and most 
scrupulous nations, and are even bound to go beyond any other 
nation in humanity, as representing nationally a higher idea, 
and having a more sacred cause. 

It is thus that we must love our enemies, and bless them 
that curse us ! We cannot spare them our blows ; for we have 
the holy cause of universal justice, and the common rights of 
humanity to defend and protect against them. But we can 
remember that they are men and brothers, though deluded ; 
we can remember that their innocent wives and children are 
tender like our own, and should have our pity and protection ; 
we can rid the contest of vindictiveness and personal hatred and 
malice — we can treat them as God treats us, who chastises and 
punishes, but not in anger ; as Christ treated Jerusalem ; who, 



11 

while he left it to the destruction it had justly invoked by its 
sins, wept over it, and would have given his life to save it, as 
he did give it to save the world. 

Alas ! alas ! the baptism of blood ! so indispensable to the 
salvation of the world, that even God did not spare his own 
son, to secure the repentance and reformation of mankind. 
How often must it be repeated ? How many of the just and 
noble and innocent must continue to suffer for the guilty? 
How many of our sons, like the heavenly Father's Child, must 
pour out their life-blood to save the country and redeem the 
race 1 For war is not shedding the blood of enemies alone ; 
it is mixing with it the blood of friends. And let those who 
think only of the cruelty of assailing and destroying the enemy, 
think of the self-sacrifice, the magnanimity, the submission, and 
disinterestedness, required of those w^ho risk their own lives, 
or freely give them, in defence of the nation ! Nay, let them 
think of those who give up what is more precious than life itself 
— that which they would gladly redeem with their own lives — 
their sons, brothers, husbands, and lovers, to fight this sad yet 
necessary battle. Oh ! if there be a need of forgiveness of 
enemies, is it not the forgiveness which these bleeding hearts 
are called on to extend towards those who have made this 
sacrifice necessary — those who have brought on this terrible 
conflict, and changed our peaceful, happy, home-blest North 
into a great camp of armed men ? We have, indeed, sore and 
urgent need to enter, at such a moment and under such trying 
circumstances, into the communion of our dying Saviour — to 
remember, that without the shedding of blood there is no 
remission of sins — to fix our eyes upon the sacrifice of our 
blessed Lord, and upon that love of God, which freely gave 
him up to the spear, and the gall, and the cross, for our sakes. 
We have need to look with him to the Almighty mercy, and 
say, as we cast our eyes upon our enemies, who have lifted us 
into this tremendous attitude of national suffering, " Father, for- 
give them ; they know not what they do. " We have need to 
look beyond this transitory scene of partings, and as we see 
on the distant hills the tents where our dear ones await the 
onset of battle, to remember, that we are all only encamped for 
a season in this battle-field of life ; that we have no abiding place 
or continuing city, but are wayfarers, pilgrims to a better coun- 



12 

try, — soldiers under arms, whose Captain is in heaven, and who 
may at any moment be summoned to a distant, even an im- 
mortal rendezvous, and that there, we and our comrades, though 
parted now, shall all at last be sure to meet, if faithful to our 
duty and generous in our self-sacrifice, about His victorious 
throne, in the peaceful city of our God. 



PEAOTIOAL HINTS FOE VOLUNTEEES, 



1. In the fii'st place, always recollect that in war a great many more 
men are disabled and die from disease than from injuries received in bat- 
tle, and that the preservation of your health depends very much upon 
yourselves. 

2. With regard to your food, you should endeavor to have your meals 
at frequent and re2:ular intervals, as in civil life, and avoid eating in the 
meamvhile, unless the supply is scanty at the proper time. As a general 
rule, eat what you like best and what agrees witli you best, and take as 
much good, wholesome food, as your system requires to keep it healthy^ 
and vigorous. 

3. Abstain from all kinds of spirituous liquors, for they predispose the 
system to disease, and those who use them are the most likely to get sick 
and die. Besides, it has been found that fatigue and exposure can be much 
better borne without than with them, and that tea and coffee answer a 
much better purpose in strengthening and protecting the sj^stem. A cheap 
and refreshing beverage may be readily made with water, vinegar, molas- 
ses, and ginger. 

4. To" further purify j^our system, and prevent colds, fevers, bowel- 
complaints, and other diseases, keep your body clean and skin active by 
frequent but short bathing, or dry frictions with coarse cloths. Rub your- 
self until you are w^arm all over. A sense of chilliness after bathing is to 
be overcome by hard rubbing and warm clothing. 

5. If you can avoid it, never sit or lie down on the bare ground or ex- 
posed rock, but, if possible, always place thick cloths, blankets, dry straw, 
grass, leaves, wood, or something of the kind under you, as a protection. 

6. To protect yourself from the ra3\s of the sun, wear a thin, light 
covering over the het.d and }ieck. In the absence of the usual " Have- 
lock," substitute some other suitable article of silk, woolen, cotton, straw, 
or even paper or leaves. Remain in the air as much as you can, but avoid 
all undue exposure to the sun, and keep your head cool and feet warm and 
dry. 

pW^ ]Please read, circulate, and. pi^e-serve. .=.^3 



mmmmmmm 



pM^ 






Aa^^^I 



K^.^'^ 



'^m^^m^^^Mr^''^^' 



aA^A, 






^m^N^f\r\r\f\N 



lAA/^A/ 



*^^aa4^/» 









WM& 



ipil'oP^^flflA^^fl^^ 






A A A A AAl 



Af \nr',AA 



:AAAN 



^^Kmmj^^^AN\ 



/^^AAA&r\A 



AAArii 



A^^WMQ5^^^^^iK;???^'#^^^^ 



;"f.Mm^X'«pfesS'i55^^^^^^^^^ 



v-w^^^ AWir.¥ 



^^mm 



mm::^?:^?^^^ 



■*iiisii#^^^Mi^M 



^flllMlil?-' 



S-tP»«aW, 



AA/y^^f^A 



^fWiVV/^ 



mmmZ 






mmmmrm 






m& 



mA 



...mt^M^immm 



\'nKrin.wr\ 



A;^."r»AAr\f\AA 



""^^mfftmmm 



^'5/^^An^A<AA«^«Aa^^AA<^.^'^A^©A#AM^^Fi-m«A 



^A^,^A^^: >.,^' 



a. :fs«iaiSi 



*I^P.WP 



iiii 



m^mf^mf^fm^MtfMMm 



^M'^i 



'^^A,^^'(5AA/5>/JAC 



^5.^,^^^^/^?! 









NSf^V' 



AJi A «^ . A'^,^ A' '^^.:.'.^<^ A 4 



4aU|I 



.A&ii^^fiAft'; 



